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cahnFinally got around to Horizon (Bujold). Well, I liked it fine. It definitely reminded me of Cherryh a bit (though markedly less grim): the big bad was not defeated, or even understood, but a minor (well, relatively) part of the big bad is defeated, with the idea that it may now be easier to defeat the big bad entirely; and a culture is not changed upside down, but nudged, little by little, into a better shape.
Have I mentioned lately how much I hate Bujold's publishers for splitting the book up and making me think I disliked it much more than I actually do? So I was rather annoyed at the last book when Dag turned out to be a total Gary Sue Expert In Everything. Well, okay, in this book it turns out that yeah, Dag is smart, but not actually so smart that he happened to stumble on something, all by himself without help, that people who, y'know, spent their lives studying didn't know about-- as happens in real life to smart people as well (as you may know, the title of this post refers to one of my favorite physics stories, Heisenberg's experience with Max Born when Heisenberg came up with a cool new way to talk about the mathematics of quantum mechanics). I have to say I laughed out loud when Arkady was all, "uh, yeah, of course I know about that stuff, and why do you do it so badly?"
The training of Dag, in general, was a lot of fun. Points for mentioning ectopic pregnancies, which I was relieved to see did not actually appear in the rest of the book, because, ick. I liked Arkady very much, and was very pleased at his arc. (Though was it just me, or was Dag just plain rude to him after Arkady basically lays his whole life on the line for Dag and all Dag can say is, "You'd better follow my rules"? How about, you know, "Thanks"?) Remo and Barr were fun to watch as well. Fawn's adventure at the end did give me chills, like it was supposed to (eek!), and Dag's confrontation after that was really rather immensely satisfying, even though it probably makes me a bad person to say that I found it so.
I did have one huge problem with the ending specifically. It seems like the whole book was bringing up these Cultural Issues (the status, or lack thereof, of half-breed children, the problem of Lakewalkers curing farmers and the riots when they can't) and then... poof... the epilogue happened and the problems all sort of magically disappeared. Apparently no one gives any of the half-breeds a second glance anymore, and Dag magically became a healer who has pretty much no problem with people wanting him to perform miracles he can't perform. Oh, there are some explanations given, and I suppose it is believable that living in a society where they are friends and neighbors, they aer able to coexist peacefully and in a friendly way (which, as well, is how Card's Worthing Saga glosses over the same issue)... but I still wonder, a bit, if it isn't glossing, and if Nattie-Mari will have problems, one day, when a boy wants to court her and his parents say he mustn't or they'll disown him, or if some crazy farmers from another town come and lynch Dag because he has gone over his maximum for dirty ground so he can't cure their daughter but it sure looks like he is malingering to them.
I also am still sort of worried about how idyllic Dag and Fawn's relationship is. I mean, I know, it's a romance, but... D and I have been married for three years now, and I feel our romance is pretty idyllic, and we've never had a knock-down drag-out fight (of the sort I have with people in my family every couple of years or so), but... you know... we have issues, occasionally. Very small ones, so far, but there are certainly days when life has gone badly for one of us and we are lashing out at the world, and the other one gets caught in the edges (never taking the brunt of it so far, which is good), with some disgruntlement ensuing. Dag and Fawn seem to understand each other perfectly always, which strikes me as a little... unlikely, given their extremely different backgrounds and extreme lack of common features (yes, I know some mixed-race/culture marriages that have done quite well-- I don't count my marriage as this kind of mixed-race/culture, though it certainly could count as one, because though we are of different races we are really from the same American-middle-class schema-- but only because they share some sort of major culture, like a fairly strong religion, or at least the experience of being from an immigrant culture). It's a far cry from the lifebonds I used to make fun of all the time, but it still seems to promote a slightly perniciously perfectionist view of marriage. (Compare Sayers' Busman's Honeymoon, where they did have to work out some things, though they also never really got into a fight.) But, you know, I'll let it slide, as it's a romance. (If it weren't a LMB book-- I really do expect her to be perfect-- I wouldn't even be bringing it up for a romance book.)
Have I mentioned lately how much I hate Bujold's publishers for splitting the book up and making me think I disliked it much more than I actually do? So I was rather annoyed at the last book when Dag turned out to be a total Gary Sue Expert In Everything. Well, okay, in this book it turns out that yeah, Dag is smart, but not actually so smart that he happened to stumble on something, all by himself without help, that people who, y'know, spent their lives studying didn't know about-- as happens in real life to smart people as well (as you may know, the title of this post refers to one of my favorite physics stories, Heisenberg's experience with Max Born when Heisenberg came up with a cool new way to talk about the mathematics of quantum mechanics). I have to say I laughed out loud when Arkady was all, "uh, yeah, of course I know about that stuff, and why do you do it so badly?"
The training of Dag, in general, was a lot of fun. Points for mentioning ectopic pregnancies, which I was relieved to see did not actually appear in the rest of the book, because, ick. I liked Arkady very much, and was very pleased at his arc. (Though was it just me, or was Dag just plain rude to him after Arkady basically lays his whole life on the line for Dag and all Dag can say is, "You'd better follow my rules"? How about, you know, "Thanks"?) Remo and Barr were fun to watch as well. Fawn's adventure at the end did give me chills, like it was supposed to (eek!), and Dag's confrontation after that was really rather immensely satisfying, even though it probably makes me a bad person to say that I found it so.
I did have one huge problem with the ending specifically. It seems like the whole book was bringing up these Cultural Issues (the status, or lack thereof, of half-breed children, the problem of Lakewalkers curing farmers and the riots when they can't) and then... poof... the epilogue happened and the problems all sort of magically disappeared. Apparently no one gives any of the half-breeds a second glance anymore, and Dag magically became a healer who has pretty much no problem with people wanting him to perform miracles he can't perform. Oh, there are some explanations given, and I suppose it is believable that living in a society where they are friends and neighbors, they aer able to coexist peacefully and in a friendly way (which, as well, is how Card's Worthing Saga glosses over the same issue)... but I still wonder, a bit, if it isn't glossing, and if Nattie-Mari will have problems, one day, when a boy wants to court her and his parents say he mustn't or they'll disown him, or if some crazy farmers from another town come and lynch Dag because he has gone over his maximum for dirty ground so he can't cure their daughter but it sure looks like he is malingering to them.
I also am still sort of worried about how idyllic Dag and Fawn's relationship is. I mean, I know, it's a romance, but... D and I have been married for three years now, and I feel our romance is pretty idyllic, and we've never had a knock-down drag-out fight (of the sort I have with people in my family every couple of years or so), but... you know... we have issues, occasionally. Very small ones, so far, but there are certainly days when life has gone badly for one of us and we are lashing out at the world, and the other one gets caught in the edges (never taking the brunt of it so far, which is good), with some disgruntlement ensuing. Dag and Fawn seem to understand each other perfectly always, which strikes me as a little... unlikely, given their extremely different backgrounds and extreme lack of common features (yes, I know some mixed-race/culture marriages that have done quite well-- I don't count my marriage as this kind of mixed-race/culture, though it certainly could count as one, because though we are of different races we are really from the same American-middle-class schema-- but only because they share some sort of major culture, like a fairly strong religion, or at least the experience of being from an immigrant culture). It's a far cry from the lifebonds I used to make fun of all the time, but it still seems to promote a slightly perniciously perfectionist view of marriage. (Compare Sayers' Busman's Honeymoon, where they did have to work out some things, though they also never really got into a fight.) But, you know, I'll let it slide, as it's a romance. (If it weren't a LMB book-- I really do expect her to be perfect-- I wouldn't even be bringing it up for a romance book.)
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Date: 2009-07-01 12:39 am (UTC)I agree completely with you that the whole Sharing Knife saga has not really been up to what I think she is capable of (and has done in the Vor and Chalion books). I think there is a reason for that: she is the kind of author who is always trying to do something new and interesting. In Chalion, for example (particularly Curse of Chalion), she explored writing theology, in the context of fantasy. I think she did a very good job and that it was a successful experiment. Here, she experimented with writing a romance novel in the context of fantasy. I do not think Bujold has EVER written romance well (I love Civil Campaign to bits, but let's face it, not for the romance), so as far as I am concerned it was a colossal failure as an experiment. Still, I respect her for trying, with the caveat that I really, really hope the experiment is now OVER.
Also, I will say that I too had some violently negative reactions to the first () and second (http://charlie-ego.livejournal.com/13389.html) books (http://charlie-ego.livejournal.com/13717.html), that I think jibe well with your above points. The third and fourth books, I thought, were much better in comparison, if only because they mute those issues a bit, and also because the first two books suffer a LOT from half-book syndrome. Now, don't get me wrong, the Sharing Knife books will never stand out in my mind as Great Books at all (the way that Memory or Curse of Chalion do), but boy howdy are they better than Mercedes Lackey, if only in general writing style/humor/worldbuilding. (And way better than some of Heinlein's later stuff, for that matter. Talk about ow!)
So I still wouldn't recommend that you read the third and fourth books, unless you're totally bored, but I will say that in my opinion they are decent books by non-Bujold standards. Arkady, who shows up only in the fourth book, is my favorite character of the series.
I've never (thankfully! cross fingers!) had a miscarriage, so that particular thing didn't really occur to me. Though I have a very dim grasp on time in books in general (on a fairly regular basis, huge spans of time go by in books and I fail to notice completely). I am very sorry that you have experience with that.
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Date: 2009-07-01 05:59 am (UTC)But as a stand alone book...oh heck no. It's a giant in-joke for the longtime Vorkosigan universe crowd.
As for the miscarriage...it may sound odd, but I was lucky in my misfortunes, as far as that was concerned. It was believed I would never GET pregnent, for one, so my doctor was actually thrilled and declared me cured of my long infertility and called the miscarriage a fluke. My partner was (and is) as loving as can be (so we grieved together), and old friends were VERY kind. One even knitted me a uterus out of yarn I'd spun so the next time would be successful...and it was. Our son Nicholas will be two in a few weeks. But it did take almost two months to recover, and I spent a good three weeks in bed.
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Date: 2009-07-02 09:49 pm (UTC)Oh, I agree that Ekaterin is a lovely character, and I love her relationships with Nikki, Tien, her family, Kareen, etc. The Miles/Ekaterin romance... not so much. In my experience, the issue of "My boyfriend [leaving aside the added issue of whether Miles is her boyfriend; she'd be within her rights to call him a stalker instead] can be kind of obnoxiously aggressively manipulative, and I just got out of a ten-year marriage nightmare where subconscious manipulation, and my buckling down under same, was The Major Problem" does not go away with a) an apology, which is certainly nice, but bolstered only by b) two (count 'em!) sexual-tension-filled private conversations, much of which are focused on problems external to the relationship, and c) a proposal. Now, by the end of ACC, Ekaterin seems to be demonstrating that she has fixed this problem and so she can soak Miles' head in water when necessary, which is great, but I am not quite sure how that suddenly happened. A year later, after she's gone to school, developed her own life, gotten back some self-confidence (which, by the way, Miles inadvertently pretty much flattened back down again), grown into herself-- yeah, no problem, go for it! At that point in her life, I'm not really convinced. (And notice how in Winterfair Gifts, all her friends seem to be a subset of Miles'? Ick.)
I was, however, too harsh in saying Bujold can't write romance. Mark/Kareen, for example, is lovely. That's an example of a relationship where there are clearly Problems, but Mark and Kareen are both good personality fits for dealing with the problems, and they have clearly done a lot of communication about Their Issues. Gregor and Laisa (and their wedding) are also quite cute, I agree.